Dear Eric: At a recent family gathering pictures were made and then posted on social media. I had not seen them, but I did participate at the time. I don’t want my pictures posted for personal reasons and it causes mental distress seeing them. I don’t feel that I can ask for them to be removed without causing a rift in the family. I did post a brief comment that people should ask before posting and I would do the same. It was seen by the person, so I hope they removed them. I feel it may have been done for the wrong reasons as this person posted only flattering ones of themselves. Now a wonderful memory of the occasion will be ruined in my memories. Should people think before using others’ photos on social media?

– Social Dilemma

Dear Social: Short answer – yes. There are plenty of reasons that people may not want their photos posted – maybe it’s not an angle you like, maybe you want to preserve your privacy, maybe you don’t want just anybody knowing what you get up to in your spare time. It is always a good practice to ask before posting.

And it’s not rude or unseemly to ask that a photo be removed or to be edited out of a photo. Many social media platforms make it quite easy to crop a photo or even add a little emoji over the face of someone who’d rather not be in the photo. Plenty of people do that when posting family photos with kids in them, for instance.

It’s easy to think of social media as akin to a personal photo album – indeed, many social media companies want you to feel that way. But a photo album generally sits on the shelf and is only shown to a limited audience. Social media, even with privacy settings in place, is much more public. You can and should ask for what you need in this case.

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Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.